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Of Red and Blue

February 7, 2004

The New York Times has published an article titled One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State. It is an interesting read with regard to the recent adoption of the terminology of “Red States” and “Blue States” to refer to whether the states were won by the Republicans or Democrats in the 2000 election respectively. I was actually contacted by the author of this article last week with the question of how I chose my color representation for the Republicans and Democrats (However, I wasn’t actually quoted in the article). For readers of the forum or FAQ, the reasons are well known. From my point of view, the colors do not represent candidates or parties, but rather data (in this case, votes for a particular candidate). Looking at the maps from an analytical perspective, the meaning is discerned from the key and one should not get hung up on the selection of colors, for they are only a representation of the data and no other symbolism should be read into the presentation. I’m sure, however, that I will continue to receive copious quantities of email with regard to color selection.